Demographic Transitional Processes – Continuity or Discontinuity

Sa？etak The second demographic transition came about in European demographic literature as a topic in 1986. The authors thereof were Dutch demographers Dirk van de Kaa and Ron Lesthaeghe. Starting from the demographic-historical conceptualisation of the theory of demographic transition, it may be concluded that following the fi rst demographic transition, the stage the authors call the second demographic transition occured in the development of the population. This is however only another name for the post-transitional stage, whereby this term includes the continuity of demographic trends, while the term the second demographic transition explains the discontinuity between the periods of the fi rst and the second demographic transition. Van de Kaa (1987) emphasises that due to the impact of essential specifi c factors, essential diff erences emerged between these two transitions. During the second demographic transition, they were caused by secularisation and individualisation processes, and new factors linked with them (new value orientation; socio-psychological and other factors). They caused a decline of marriages; an increase in the number of cohabitations and other forms of life partnerships; an increase in the number of children born out of wedlock; an increase in the number of divorces; etc., which have become acceptable in the perception of the young generation. On the contrary, having children and the number of children have become a matt er of partners’ free choice, as their primary goal is to achieve self-fulfi lment at personal level. It has all exercised an impact on a further fertility reduction, which started in the middle phase, and became intensifi ed in the late phase of the fi rst transition. Essential diff erences between the fi rst and the second transition, which the authors mention in the paper, have however arisen from the understandable fact that each period bear their own specifi c historical context and specifi c features of social diff erentiation. The authors point out that essential diff erences between the two transitions have further arisen from the main postulates they are based upon. The fi nal stage of the fi rst transition was based on balance (zero level) between low birth and death rates, and on stationary population. In the second demographic transition, birth and fertility rates tended to be reduced to the sub-replacement level, or, according to Lesthaeghe, to the sustainable sub-replacement fertility level, which, along with life prolongation, intensifi ed population aging, which demanded the so-called replacement